Phone-a-Friend
Phone-a-Friend is a lifeline in the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? game. It is most commonly used if a contestant gets stuck on a particular question and needs help by calling a friend or relative on telephone. The contestant has to ask the current question and four (or two when 50:50 was used before) possible choices, and the friend is given 30 (25 in Croatia since 2019) seconds to provide input and give the answer they think is correct to the contestant before the call is cut off. History and Ask the Audience.]] The Phone-a-Friend lifeline was one of the original three lifelines on the show, when it first aired in the UK on 4 September, 1998. The UK version used it for its entirety; however, the U.S. show has used it only until early 2010, when it was discontinued because of an increasing trend in contestants’ friends using Internet search engines to look up the right answer (while this was not necessarily a rules violation, it was contrary to the original intent of this lifeline). This lifeline was sponsored by AT&T for the U.S. primetime run from 1999-2002, the first season of the syndicated version from 2002-2003, and 2009 primetime revival. On the other hand, whereas the U.S. version discontinued this lifeline, the UK version continued to use this lifeline, but instead changed how the lifeline worked; instead of leaving the selected friends at home, the contestant selects their friends ahead of time, and the show brings them backstage and places them in isolated soundproof booths, where they will not see or hear anything that goes on in the main studio until they are called for assistance, and they will not have any access to the internet. In all versions of the game that have this lifeline, a contestant must give the show a list of three or five friends before gameplay begins that can be called (they may not choose any other friends during gameplay). These friends will be called just as a contestant begins gameplay in order to remind them to be on stand-by and to keep the line as open as possible. On live shows, the show may bring said friends to a backstage location somewhere else in the studio and keep them away from telephones, TVs, and access to outside parties, in order for them to not know the contents of the questions a contestant is facing beforehand. Clock Format In the U.S., UK, and other countries' Clock Formats, when the contestant chose to use the lifeline, the clock would be stopped. Once the call was finished, the host would give a brief explanation, and then the clock would start again. Phone-a-Complete Stranger A variation of Phone-a-Friend, called Phone-a-Complete Stranger, was used on the former Who Wants to Be a Millionaire – Play It! attraction. Instead of calling someone from the contestant's list of friends, a Disney Cast Member would get called and asked by the host to find a park guest to help the contestant with the question they need help on. During Star Wars Weekends at Disney's Hollywood Studios, when the attraction had questions asked about Star Wars, the lifeline would be temporarily renamed Phone-a-Stormtrooper. For ESPN The Weekend, it would be replaced with a chance to ask an ESPN expert for assistance. In few countries Millionaire Hot Seat has it lifeline named Ask A Friend, which similar to Plus One. Trivia * Regis Philbin said on the first episode of the U.S. version that Phone-a-Friend was his favorite lifeline. * On three occasions, a contestant would use the Phone-a-Friend lifeline on the last question, not for help, but to inform their friend that they were about to win the top prize, then eventually do so. The most common example is John Carpenter. The other two are Ralf Schnoor and Enrique Chicote. * For the 9th season of Kaun Banega Crorepati, the 2017 season of Ai Là Triệu Phú, and Quiz $ Millionaire, they will be using video calls instead of audio calls. * When Eddie Timanus used the Phone-a-Friend lifeline during his Millionaire run, since he was blind, host Meredith Vieira would read the question and four possible choices to Eddie's friend instead and also remind him of how much time remained on the 30 second clock. * Since the 2018 revival in the UK version, the friends would be accompanied by a member of the production team to prevent them from cheating. * In the first episode of the UK version, the Phone-a-Friend lifeline was conducted using a handheld landline telephone. It was only used during Graham Elwell's run. * When Tko želi biti milijunaš? and BankGiro Miljonairs returned in 2019, the Phone-a-Friend lifeline shortened from 30 to 25 seconds. * On Ai Là Triệu Phú, there are two errors on this lifeline, and both of them were calling wrong phone number or wrong people: ** The first is on July 12th, 2005 (?), a contestant name Lê Thanh Huệ using Phone-a-Friend lifeline to calling doctor Tùng, who was working on 108 Hospital. But the show had calling wrong people (a women). Then, she was said that she want calling her father name Thuộc. But the computer system had wrong name (Thuật instead of Thuộc), and her father's phone number was not appeared on this computer system. So later, she was not using Phone-a-Friend lifeline and this lifeline was crossed off. This is the first error of Phone-a-Friend lifeline history. ** The second is on May 7th, 2019, a contestant name Phạm Quỳnh Như using Phone-a-Friend lifeline on the 6th question to calling Vũ Văn Khanh. But the show had calling wrong his number. So the host (Phan Đăng) said that this is the first time a error was happen on 15 years history of Ai Là Triệu Phú, and the show was calling him one again. Gallery ClassicPAFused.png|Crossed off PAF 2018.gif|2018 design PhoneAFriendClock.png|Clock format Video_A_Friend_lifeline.jpg|Video call in Kaun Banega Crorepati Phone a friend.png|Rave format Ke5GbiT.png|Alt format Phone-a-Friend IR logo.png|Lifeline in Iran ClearWellinformedButterfly-small.gif|The 1998-2007 Phone-a-Friend Clock. 6CA8625B-B992-4CA2-B42C-AAD037FEC184.jpeg|The U.S Phone-a-Friend Clock, sponsored by AT&T. 6F8213F2-41A6-4953-9BAB-F0339293D5CD.jpeg|Italy Phone-a-Friend Clock. AA05CBB1-2EA1-4714-8BA3-18A488EB3A16.jpeg|UK Phone-a-Friend clock, used in the “Big Bad Clock” format from 2010-2014, returned for the 20th anniversary, and now its the current clock. It also used on the France and Vietnamese version. BA6FAF3C-1F59-4F85-B96E-B69EC2508955.gif|Russian Phone-a-Friend Clock, 2011-Now Screenshot (140).png|Phone-a-Friend Clock, sponsored by AT&T (U.S. syndicated, Season 1) clock1.png|UK clock, 2007-2010 clock2.png|Czech Phone-a-Friend clock clock3.png|German and Austrian Phone-a-Friend clock clock4.png|International Phone-a-Friend clock, 2007-present CLOCK NL.png|International Phone-a-Friend clock, 2019-present Phone-a-friend_kz_error.jpg|Error in Kazakhstan (photos of the contestants were not displayed) 06A70D5C-B765-4ABE-B453-8D2821B1392D.png|Video phone call on Quiz $ Millionaire WWTBAM_TH_Phone-a-Friend.jpg|Thailand vi:Gọi điện thoại cho người thân Category:Lifelines